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News and Updates
Issues
October 2, 2009
US Chemical Safety Board Fails to Recommend Safety Standards for American Workers
Savannah, GA—The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) today again criticized the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) for not recommending strong standards to prevent deadly explosions in food processing and other facilities that use natural gas.
The union reacted to the CSB’s safety bulletin on the deadly explosion at the ConAgra Slim Jim manufacturing facility in Garner, North Carolina the morning of June 9, 2009. The explosion killed three people, injured scores of others and severely damaged the plant.
“Once again the CSB has failed to take the most basic steps for the safety of American workers,” said Jackie Nowell, Occupational Safety and Health Director for the UFCW. “By not recommending urgent standards on fuel gas purging they leave the lives of thousands of workers at risk.”
The CSB failed to recommend changes in fire codes that would restrict the practice of purging gas piping and set criteria for performing it safely. While CSB Chairman John Bresland commended the state of North Carolina for their action to change their codes, unfortunately, the CSB did not recommend the same for national fire codes.
“If the CSB continues to fail America’s workers by not taking a stronger stand for safety, it’s time for change at the CSB,” said Nowell.
The UFCW represents more than 900 workers at the facility, and is the union for thousands of food processing workers in similar facilities nationwide.
September 24, 2009
US Chemical Safety Board Again Fails to Stand for Better Safety Rules for America’s Workers
Savannah, GA—Several international unions representing hundreds of thousands of chemical and food industry workers today again criticized the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) for not recommending strong standards to prevent deadly explosions in factories handling combustible dusts, despite the board’s prior endorsement of such a step.
The unions reacted to the CSB’s new report on the deadly sugar dust explosion on Feb. 7, 2008, at the Imperial Sugar refinery in Port Wentworth, Georgia. The explosion killed fourteen people, injured scores of others and severely damaged the plant.
“The Imperial Sugar tragedy is compelling evidence of the need for stricter OSHA regulation on combustible dust,” said Steve Sallman, Health and Safety Specialist from the United Steelworkers (USW). “Without a regulation, upper management will typically not commit the resources needed to achieve compliance, or, more importantly, to protect their employees.”
“As recently as 2006, the CSB recommended to the Congress that OSHA adopt a comprehensive new standard on combustible dust, but today they let that ball drop,” said Eric Frumin, Health and Safety Coordinator, Change to Win.
“”The CSB’s leadership is a remnant of the Bush administration’s dangerous legacy for America’s workers,”” said Jackie Nowell, Occupational Safety and Health Director for the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW). “If the Board continues to ignore its obligation to oversee the scope of our safety regulations, it will require new leadership to assure that its mission is accomplished.”
In a November 2006 report, the CSB pointed out serious deficiencies in OSHA’s various standards on combustible dust hazards. That report identified hundreds of combustible dust incidents over the last 25 years, causing nearly 120 deaths and hundreds more injuries.
On Feb. 19, 2008, immediately following the Imperial Sugar explosion, the UFCW and International Brotherhood of Teamsters petitioned the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to immediately issue an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) for combustible dust in general industry noting that “workers who are employed in facilities where uncontrolled combustible dust emissions are present face ‘grave danger’ of experiencing fatalities or serious injuries as a result of dust explosions and resultant fires.” To this date, no standard has been set to protect America’s workers.
September 1, 2009
UFCW, Partners Announce New Agenda Challenging Walmart to Change Practices for the Sake of the American Economy
Washington, DC – UFCW International Vice President and Director Pat O’Neill today announced a new national comprehensive American values-driven agenda to hold Walmart accountable to its workers, our communities and the planet. He was joined by Nelson Lichtenstein, author of The Retail Revolution: How Walmart Created a Brave New World of Business, and Kim Bobo, Executive Director of Interfaith Worker Justice on a call to launch a broad coalition of labor, environmental and community groups who are calling on Walmart to join them in supporting the core American values of worker rights, quality jobs, equal opportunity, corporate responsibility and a healthy environment.
“Labor Day is an important time to reflect on the state of the American workplace and worker. As the world’s largest retailer, and America’s number one private employer, Walmart has the largest, most profound impact on jobs and on our economy,” O’Neill said. “Nobody wants an economy where workers earn wages that can’t support a family. Nobody wants an economy where people who go to work everyday and work hard have to turn to public assistance for basic needs.
“The Department of Labor last week released a report showing that the retail sector will see tremendous growth in the coming years, and it is up to all of us to determine what kinds of jobs those will be. We are trying to engage Walmart, not isolate it. With 1.4 million Americans working in its stores, Walmart bears a unique responsibility to its workers and our communities, and we’re asking them to embrace this challenge.”
On the conference call, O’Neill issued direct challenges to Walmart in five key areas: worker rights, quality jobs, equal opportunity, corporate responsibility and a healthy environment. He then laid out next steps for how the coalition, led by the UFCW, will hold Walmart accountable for those challenges, and to the ideals it puts forth in its advertising.
The full American Values Agenda for Change at Walmart can be viewed at http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/feature/commonsense/.
Additionally, Lichtenstein asserted Walmart’s vast impact on the American economy.
“When a company gets to be as big as Wal-Mart and employs so many workers – more than any other private enterprise in the world – it is no longer a ‘private’ entity,” Lichtenstein said. “It sets the wage and benefit standard for every other mass retailer and influences the business practices of just about every firm in America’s huge service sector. So Wal-Mart is part of this country’s debate: on health care, wages, equal employment, and the role of trade unionism in our democracy.”
Coalition members include: AFL-CIO, Change to Win, Sierra Club, Campaign for America’s Future, National Education Association, American Federation of Teachers, National Consumers League, AFSCME, American Rights at Work, Communications Workers of America, Interfaith Worker Justice, LIUNA, National Labor Coordinating Committee, Service Employees International Union, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, United Auto Workers, United Farmer Workers and United Steel Workers.
As a part of the launch of this important new campaign, WakeUpWalmart.com will be releasing two new television advertisements called “Common Sense Economics Rules” calling on Walmart to offer quality, affordable health care coverage to all its employees. Both ads highlight Walmart’s failure to cover 700,000 of its employees, nearly half of its workforce. They end with the message “Walmart can afford to be a better employer; Now would be a good time to start.”
The ads can be viewed at: http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/video/commonsense/.
June 18, 2009
STATEMENT FROM JOE HANSEN, UFCW INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENT
WASHINGTON, DC – A horrific accident took the lives of three workers and injured 41 others in an explosion and roof collapse at the ConAgra Foods Inc. facility in Garner, North Carolina, on June 9, 2009. The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 204 represents 900 workers in that facility.
The Chemical Safety Board is conducting an in-depth investigation into the fatal explosion. Their work will be instrumental in determining the cause of this tragic accident that took the lives of three workers and injured many more.
Over the next several months, investigators will sift through the evidence, consult with Board members, and review regulations and industry practices. The investigators will draw lessons learned from the accident and make recommendations for corrective action to make sure it can’t happen again.
Workers who survived the explosion have been active participants in the investigation, giving detailed interviews, telling their stories about what happened June 9, 2009.
The UFCW supports this important work and are proud partners in their ongoing work to prevent workplace accidents.
June 12, 2009
UFCW STATEMENT ON TRAGIC EVENT AT CONAGRA PLANT IN GARNER, NORTH CAROLINA
WASHINGTON, DC – A horrific accident took the lives of three workers and injured 41 others in an explosion and roof collapse at the ConAgra Foods Inc. facility in Garner, North Carolina, on June 9, 2009. The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 204 represents 900 workers in that facility.
The UFCW is working closely with the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, an independent federal agency, and the North Carolina Occupational Safety and Health Administration (NC-OSHA), as they investigate the accident. The UFCW is providing full assistance to help shed a light on the unfortunate event. In addition, the UFCW has established a fund to assist the victims of the tragic event.
“”The Garner incident is a heartbreaking tragedy that reminds us that worker safety is of the utmost importance in the workplace,”” said Jackie Nowell, UFCW Director of Occupational Safety and Health. “”We are working with the regulatory agencies and the company to ensure that such catastrophes are prevented.””
The UFCW believes that ConAgra is stepping up to the plate by continuing to pay the employees their full salaries, indefinitely. Such measures will bring the much needed comfort to the workers while they try to rebuild their livelihoods.
May 8, 2009
UFCW Statement on DOL Budget
“”The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) applauds the budget proposed by President Barack Obama’s administration for the Department of Labor. This budget – with its focus on enforcement of labor laws, safer workplaces, and helping unemployed Americans – prioritizes the needs of working families across the country. Importantly, the Obama administration has charted a path away from destructive pro-big business policies of the Bush era and towards a future where the needs of working Americans come first.
With this budget, the Department of Labor has returned to its mission of protecting America’s workers rather than serving the needs of corporate lobbyists, and high-dollar donors.
This budget provides for hundreds of new investigators to ensure that Americans are paid for their hard work, increased Occupational Safety and Health Administration funding so that they come home safe every day, and new funding for programs that help the unemployed find new work. We at the UFCW know that this budget is an important step to jump start our economy, and make work pay for every American.”
November 14, 2008
UFCW Local 222 Staff Member Carmen Hacht Receives Health and Safety Award
November 10–Local 222 Recording Secretary Carmen Hacht is the 2007 recipient of the 2008 Tony Mazzocchi Award, an award for excellence in occupational health and safety in the workplace.
Hacht worked at Tyson Foods Inc. meatpacking plant (formerly IBP) in Nebraska for 20 years, playing a role as an active steward from the very beginning of her time there. In the mid-1980s, IBP workers were suffering from high rates of MSDs. Local 222 and the UFCW International’s Safety and Health department filed an OSHA complaint, and IBP receieved one of the highest fines ever for failing to provide a safe and healthy workplace.
Settlement of the citations led to a successful ergonomic program, and Carmen became an “”ergonomic monitor,”” a line worker trained in ergonomics. She was responsible for job analysis, audits of workers on light duty jobs, worker advocacy when workers were injured and needed help getting through the medical system, and monitoring workers training and skills.
Carmen’s work at Local 222 now includes overseeing the ergonomics program at the meatpacking plants. She teaches new monitors what their jobs will entail, and has earned the trust and respect of the plant workers. The UFCW is proud of the contributions that Carmen has made over the years to improving working conditions for thousands of workers.
October 30, 2008
Iowa Smithfield Workers Ratify Strong New Contract
Sioux City, Iowa– Nearly a thousand workers represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) Local 1142 voted overwhelmingly to ratify a new contract with Smithfield Foods at the company’s John Morrell Plant in Sioux City, Iowa. The four- and a half-year agreement delivers wage increases that keep plant workers at the top of the industry standard and maintains affordable health care.
“We’ve been at the bargaining table since last October,” said UFCW Local 1142 President Warren Baker. ”The negotiations were contentious. There’s always give and take, but, in the end, we arrived at a fair settlement.””
The new contract establishes:
–Wage increases including $1.50/hr. base wage increase over the life of the contract for production workers and $1.65/hr. base wage increase for maintenance workers.
–Maintains affordable health care, with no co-premium increases in the first or last half year of the contract. Weekly increases of $1.50 for individual and $3 for family coverage are triggered in years two, three, and four of the contract.
–Maintains pension security
–Increases sick pay
–Improves working conditions
“The contract is really good in terms of the health insurance,” said Gary Petz, who has worked at the plant for 23 years. “Overall, the good wage increases and benefits are a result of everyone sticking together for a contract that provides security for our families.”
July 29, 2008
UFCW Calls on OSHA to Issue a Combustible Dust Standard
Washington, D.C. – OSHA’s proposed fines of $8.7 million for violations at the Imperial Sugar plant near Savannah, Georgia, where an explosion killed 13 workers in February, and at another plant in Gramercy, Louisiana, magnify the gaps in current OSHA enforcement standards with regard to combustible dust, including a reliance on “general duty” citations and a patchwork of other standards which are limited in scope and do not address such critical considerations as design, maintenance, hazard review and explosion protection. This action also underscores OSHA’s reluctance to follow the recommendations of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) that may have prevented the tragedy in Georgia and other combustible dust explosions.
The fines also expose OSHA’s inability to monitor the actions of big businesses such as Imperial Sugar. The explosion in Georgia took place on February 7; however, OSHA inspectors found that the company had not taken immediate steps to mitigate another potential disaster when they inspected the plant in Louisiana a month later.
Earlier this year, the UFCW and the Teamsters called on OSHA to issue an emergency standard on combustible dust, and filed a petition with the U.S. Department of Labor demanding that OSHA follow the 2006 recommendations of the CSB, an independent federal agency charged with investigating industrial chemical accidents.
In 2006, the CSB recommended that OSHA issue a rule that would have reduced the possibility of combustible dust explosions. That year, the CSB conducted a major study of combustible dust hazards, and noted that a quarter of the explosions that occureed between 1980 and 2005 that were identified, occurred at food industry facilities, including sugar refineries. In only one or two investigations were these incidents caused by mechanical mysteries that were either unforeseen or unpredicted.
Standards and codes have existed for years for OSHA to build upon and eliminate this type of explosion. In 1987, OSHA issued the Grain Handling Facilities Standard as the result of grain dust explosions in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This standard has effectively reduced the number and severity of combustible grain dust explosions in the grain handling industry, but stopped short of regulating combustible dust in industries outside of the grain industry.
The UFCW applauds the U.S. House of Representatives for passing legislation to force OSHA to set a combustible dust standard, and urges President Bush to reconsider his veto threat. OSHA must act now and follow the recommendations of the CSB before more workers are killed or horribly injured.
July 28, 2008
UFCW Calls on OSHA to Issue a Combustile Dust Standard
Washington, D.C. – OSHA’s proposed fines of $8.7 million for violations at the Imperial Sugar plant near Savannah, Georgia, where an explosion killed 13 workers in February, and at another plant in Gramercy, Louisiana, magnify the gaps in current OSHA enforcement standards with regard to combustible dust, including a reliance on “general duty” citations and a patchwork of other standards which are limited in scope and do not address such critical considerations as design, maintenance, hazard review and explosion protection. This action also underscores OSHA’s reluctance to follow the recommendations of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) that may have prevented the tragedy in Georgia and other combustible dust explosions.
The fines also expose OSHA’s inability to monitor the actions of big businesses such as Imperial Sugar. The explosion in Georgia took place on February 7; however, OSHA inspectors found that the company had not taken immediate steps to mitigate another potential disaster when they inspected the plant in Louisiana a month later.
Earlier this year, the UFCW and the Teamsters called on OSHA to issue an emergency standard on combustible dust, and filed a petition with the U.S. Department of Labor demanding that OSHA follow the 2006 recommendations of the CSB, an independent federal agency charged with investigating industrial chemical accidents.
In 2006, the CSB recommended that OSHA issue a rule that would have reduced the possibility of combustible dust explosions. That year, the CSB conducted a major study of combustible dust hazards, and noted that a quarter of the explosions that occureed between 1980 and 2005 that were identified, occurred at food industry facilities, including sugar refineries. In only one or two investigations were these incidents caused by mechanical mysteries that were either unforeseen or unpredicted.
Standards and codes have existed for years for OSHA to build upon and eliminate this type of explosion. In 1987, OSHA issued the Grain Handling Facilities Standard as the result of grain dust explosions in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This standard has effectively reduced the number and severity of combustible grain dust explosions in the grain handling industry, but stopped short of regulating combustible dust in industries outside of the grain industry.
The UFCW applauds the U.S. House of Representatives for passing legislation to force OSHA to set a combustible dust standard, and urges President Bush to reconsider his veto threat. OSHA must act now and follow the recommendations of the CSB before more workers are killed or horribly injured.
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The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) represents more than 1.3 million workers, primarily in the retail and meatpacking, food processing and poultry industries. The UFCW protects the rights of workers and strengthens America’s middle class by fighting for health care reform, immigration reform, living wages, retirement security, safe working conditions and the right to unionize so that working men and women and their families can realize the American Dream. For more information about the UFCW’s effort to protect workers’ rights and strengthen America’s middle class, visit www.ufcw.org.